THE SCOPE AND RISE OF MEDICAL TOURISM IN INDIA

Medical tourism is becoming the largest and fastest growing industries across the world. Because of the burgeoning population of uninsured people and rising costs of deductibles, many of them are opting to seek medical treatment abroad where there is less cost of treatment even for world class facilities and doctors.

Medical tourism in India provides cost effective or low cost medical treatment. These offer no waiting lists and accessibility to experienced and skilled doctors. Hence India is becoming a magnet for medical tourists from around the world. It is also expected that medical tourism is poised for a boom as India continues to offer world class treatment at a fraction of the cost in their native country.

India enjoys the reputations as one of the best in medical tourism destinations. Excellent health care facilities are offered for medical tourism India. But many foreigners worry about the quality of care when they are offered low prices of treatment. Some are not aware of the world class hospitals and well qualified doctors in India.

But the fact is that medical procedures mostly cost less or half as much in India as compared to native countries like US or UK. This low cost is in spite of factoring cost of travel and accommodation. And low cost of treatment does not imply low quality of treatment.

India offers an exceptional range of medical treatment packages at very reasonable rates. Most hospitals in India provide advanced health care facilities and medical technology albeit at a very less price. Indian doctors are well trained and experienced. Best part is that they are multilingual which makes patients comfortable. You can be sure you are in good hands as most of them have been trained in the best medical schools in the world.

Medical tourism has been a crucial growth sector in recent decades. Strong pharmaceutical industry, growing medical insurance sector, high quality medical care and low cost of overseas travel have made India, the popular health tourism destination. India hosts tourists from nations like Canada, US and Australia as well as neighbours like China, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

The medical tourism market also consists of secondary stakeholders from the industry who benefit a great deal from this form of tourism. The government has projected over 5% growth in this sector in the coming decade. Major players like Fortis, Tata group, Apollo, Wockhardt and Max have spent considerable sums to invest in modern specialty and super specialty hospitals to serve the needs of the new kind of visitors to India.

The main attractions with India are economic reasons. There are clear advantages for choosing English speaking India for medical services. For instance, one needs to spend around $140,000 for a heart bypass in the US while in India, it costs only $7000. Other cheap procedures which are popular with tourists to India are:

Spine surgery

Eye surgery

Joint treatments

Blood vessel treatment

Cosmetic surgery

Cardiac treatments

Stomach treatments

Dental treatments

Laser hair removal

ENT ( Ear, Nose, Throat) treatments

Spa and beauty treatments.

Another reason for popularity of India with medical tourists is because of alternative methods of treatment such as: